Happy Halloween From Room 1

Guess what our Staff costume was...

Boo!

Learning Highlights
It has been an exciting day.  We had some great costumes and a fun costume parade.  Thanks to all those that were able to join in the fun of dressing your kids up, watching the parade and sending in treats.

This week we have been swimming twice and our work in the classroom has focused around completing and sharing our plant facts.  We also got our plant bulbs planted last Friday.  We are excited to see what comes up in the spring.

In math we began a new unit of Shape and space.  We had a 2D shape hunt and next week we will go outside for a 3D shape hunt.  We have been learning about the difference between 2D and 3D shapes.  Ask me what the difference is?  We have been learning shape names and talking about things such as edges and faces and points or vertices.

In science we have started our new color unit and we began working on creating the colors in the color wheel.  Ask me to tell you about the primary colors...

Dates to Remember...
Tomorrow there is no school as it is a PD Day.
Next week on Monday and Wednesday we have swimming.
Next Thursday, Nov. 7th is photo retake day.
Friday November 8th is our Remembrance Day Assembly at 10:45.  Anyone that wishes to join us is welcome.

Busy Week

Reminders
Swimming begins tomorrow.  We leave right after the attendance is taken at 1:00 and we will return to the school by about 2:45.  Please send a towel, plastic bag for wet bathing suits, small snack to eat while walking back and a bag or small back pack for carrying this to the pool.

Swimming dates coming up next week:
Thurs. Oct. 24th, 28th, 30th

October 31st
In the afternoon we will be having a costume Halloween parade and some activities and snacks in the classroom.  If you would like to send in special Halloween treats please email me.  We do have nut allergy concerns.

Nov. 1st - PD Day, no school

FYI -  I will be away on Friday so there will not be a Blog Posting this Friday.

Learning Highlights

We worked in small groups of three or four to try and problem solve "How many More...?" or "How many less...?" problems using the class totals for our harvested vegetables.  We are sharing strategies and trying to practice counting on, using our knowledge of tens, to help us solve these problems.

We have been researching together, how the Indigenous used the wildflowers and plants that we have been learning about.  We are creating small fact bubbles to go with our plant paintings.  We are excited to show our big buddies this Friday how we have become plant experts.  We are going to share our plant identification books by taking them outside and showing them the flowers.  We need to be able to tell them the name of the flower and locate it in the Natureground to show them.  We will also share some of the facts that we have learned about them.  This Friday we will also be planting bulbs in the beds at the front of the school.  The bulbs were donated by the Embry family.

This week we have been working on our covers so that our books are ready to go for  our Big Buddy sharing on Friday.

Animals and Plants Prepare for WInter, Recipe Books

Reminders:
-Swimming begins this Thursday, the 24th.
I will be sending home a volunteer schedule this coming week.
We are still looking for a male volunteer to help us in the change room with the boys at the pool.  Please let me know if you are available.


Learning Highlights:

Today we began the morning by working to put together our recipe books.  We are bringing them home and are looking forward to baking and cooking some of the recipes again at home.

We went outside to play the game camouflage.  We played it so that we could be like animal prey and  we tried to hide from the predators, Mrs. Hamby and Mrs. Yoon.  Even though some of us were wearing really bright colors we were able to camouflage really well.  They couldn't see us!

We learned that plants and animals prepare for winter.  Animals prepare by being either hibernators, adaptors or migrators.  We talked about how hibernators gather food and eat as much as they can.  Adaptors begin to change color and grow more hair or fur.  Migrators begin to gather and then leave for a warmer climate.

Recipe books coming home today!

Harvest Math , Recipe Books and Plant Diagrams

Reminders:
- Literacy Night tonight from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.
- Home reading to begin October 21st.
- Swimming begins the afternoon of October 24th, 28th, 30th, Nov. 4th, 6th, 13th.
- Halloween Parade, October 31st.
- Nov. 7th Photo retakes.

Learning Highlights:


In writing,  we are working to finish up our Harvest recipes this week so that we can bring them home on Friday.  Hopefully we can get them done by then.  We have also been introduced to new literacy centers as we are getting ready to begin guided reading groups next week.  Next week we will also begin our Home Reading Program.  If you have been cleared to volunteer you will receive an invitation email for Sign-up Genius.  You can go on there and book yourself into days that you would be available to come and help with home reading.  It involves having kids read to you and helping them exchange their books for new ones.  It works best to have two volunteers for each day, one from each class if possible.

We have been working on diagrams to show the parts of a plant.  We could choose to write our own labels or to cut out and glue typed labels.  We had to know the names of all the plant parts and where the labels need to go.  We are in various stages of completion.

In math we have been working to show our harvest tally by creating a garden mural.  Each table group was in charge of making the number of beets, carrots. and potatoes that each group had tallied in their bag.
We only have room one totals here but next week one of our problems in math will be to add the room one totals and the room 2 totals together.

Being Thankful...

Reminders

-  Saakokoto visit tomorrow.
- No school Friday, Professional Learning Day

- Individual and class pictures Wednesday, October 17th

- Literacy Night 5:00 - 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 17th

* Please return swimming forms as soon as possible.

Learning Highlights:

This week has been all about our harvest of vegetables.  We have been counting and tallying the vegetables as table groups and then as a class.  Room one counted 104 carrots, 34 beets and 28 potatoes and 9 zucchinis.  We still have to put our count together with room 2 for our total harvest tally.  In math we will be making a big garden mural to show our total vegetable tally of beets, carrots, potatoes and zucchini.  Yesterday we baked zucchini bread and today we made carrot cookies.  We will be making potato corn chowder tomorrow.  In writing time we are working on a recipe book that we will be bringing home.  We are looking forward to trying the recipes with our families.  In science, we have been working on a diagram of a sunflower and learning about the importance of the various parts of the plant.

Zucchini Bread

Carrot Cookies

Harvesting the Sun Circle Garden

Learning Highlights

Today we harvested our garden.  We took all the vegetables out of the dirt in the sun circle planters. 

Before we went outside we all met together and talked about how the root vegetables grow and also about harvesting them.  We had a story called "In the Garden and Under the Dirt".  To get the job done wee had to make gardening teams. 
Our teams were:
washers, diggers for carrots, potatoes, beets, and we had a runner job too.  The runners had to take the vegetables inside to the washers.  The washers were inside the classrooms washing all the vegetables.  They were then set out to dry on the tables in the classroom.

One we were outside we had to go to our assigned job and begin to dig up the vegetables, compost the greens and put the planter to rest for the winter.  It was exciting to see the big carrots that grew in the corners of the planters.  It was also exciting to find big purple and white potatoes in the planters.  Some of the potatoes were really big!  In the beet planter we had to make sure that we brushed off all the dirt and we cut the tops off.  We used scissors because we didn't want the dye to go all over our hands.  The beets were smaller than we expected them to be.  We also had big zucchinis.  We will be using all the vegetables to bake and cook with next week.  Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Some of our Fall 2019 harvest...

Vegetable Graph, Rose Hip Paintings, Snow Play and Playground Expectations

Reminders
- We will be harvesting our garden on Fresh Air Friday because of the snow delay.
- October 11, Professional Day, no classes.
- Picture Day on October 16th.

Learning Highlights:
In preparation for our vegetable harvest we did a vegetable survey.  We also had to make a graph to show what we found out.  We could make either a picture graph or a bar graph, we each got to decide.  Ask me what kind of graph I am making and what I found out.


 
We have been working to paint and add details to our Rose Hip sketches and Golden Rod sketches.  The details show our careful observations that we made as we were sketching. 





On Monday we were supposed to start our soccer unit in gym.  We were so excited about the snow that we voted to go out for our gym time and do some snow building and snow play instead.  It was so much fun!



Mrs. Polski came around to each classroom today to remind kids about the playground expectations.  Here is a list of the things that she talked about:

We do not allow tag or chasing games of any kind on the playground. If students are playing these types of games please ask them to leave the area and play in the field, or nature grounds area. This would include running through the playground being chased.

Slides are intended for sliding down, not climbing up. Down on the slide, up on the stairs and ladders. Owen C. said, "snakes and ladders taught me a lot". If students are reminded of the game they may remember that you travel down the snakes and up the ladders.

Do not climb above anything that is higher than chest level. This would mean students should not be climbing above any of the monkey bar areas or the glider and sitting on the main beam. 

Do not climb on the outside of the bridge.

Do not jump down from the fire pole platform. 

Rocks stay on the ground, they are not thrown at anyone or thrown onto the equipment.